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    Wasn’t Isaac afraid? – Vayyera

    Everybody concentrates on the dynamics of the moment – how did Isaac feel at the Akedah? How did Abraham feel?

    A question we don’t seem to ask is what happened afterwards.

    How did Isaac cope with life after the episode of the Binding was all over? How did he get the nerve to continue with life, and to get married and have children?

    Wasn’t he afraid that what happened to him once on Mount Moriah could well happen again?

    There was no guarantee that he would survive and that life would continue. Logic would have suggested that he remain a nervous wreck as long as he lived. Yet that’s not what occurred.

    After the Akedah he married Rebekah, and there is nothing in the Bible to imply that he told her he was uncertain about whether he ought to be getting married, whether to her or to anyone else.

    After marrying Rebekah he fathered children. Did he hang on to them and smother them with love because he never expected that God would grant him continuity?

    This was not just the dilemma of Isaac but of many of his descendants.

    It was surely God’s promise to Abraham that gave Isaac the courage to continue, and the same is true for all our generations including that of the Holocaust.

    As the Haggadah says, V’hi she-am’dah – God’s promise kept us going and ensured that we never abandoned hope or refused to keep going.

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